Risk communications and its importance in disaster management

2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
pp. 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan Patrick Gill

During the onslaught of hurricane Katrina on the gulf coast of the United States in August 2005, local emergency planning officials, state agencies, and federal entities came together to impress upon those still left in the danger zone to evacuate. Unfortunately, more than 100,000 people remained in the danger area because of various reasons. In this piece, the author will examine Protective Action Recommendations, proper and poor risk communications, and the need for emergency management officials to keep the pulse of those that they serve.

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jung Wook Kim ◽  
Kyujin Jung

While voluntary organizations have played a critical role in preparing for and responding to disasters, few have intentionally examined the preparedness of voluntary organizations, which are fundamentally required to enhance local emergency management. The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between the preparedness of voluntary organizations and their effectiveness on local emergency management. By using a survey data collected among county governments in the United States, this research tests the effect of voluntary organizations’ preparedness on local emergency management. The results show that the voluntary organizations' preparedness behaviors such as their participation in local emergency planning as well as training, education, and resources for local emergency management positively affect their effectiveness on local emergency management. The findings imply that systemic volunteer management can build more effective emergency management systems through cohesive and comprehensive collaboration between public and voluntary organizations.


2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 223-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace Kao

Hurricane Katrina, which hit the Central Gulf Coast in August 2005, was undoubtedly one of the worst natural disasters to strike the United States in the age of round-the-clock media journalism. Television coverage of Hurricane Katrina brought to the forefront the costs of disadvantage along racial and class lines. Needless to say, the victims left behind were disproportionately African American, elderly, and impoverished residents of the area. While the focus of media discussions centered around whether African Americans were abandoned by governmental agencies or if they were to blame for not heeding the call to evacuate, there was a complete absence of coverage and discussion of Hispanic and Asian American residents of the area, who are also disproportionately poor and many of whom lacked English skills to navigate the little help available to residents. This essay briefly discusses the few newspaper articles that examined these populations; Hispanic and Asian American journalists wrote almost all of these articles. I then examine how the lack of attention to these populations shapes our common understandings of race and why this may be problematic both in the United States and in a global environment.


2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher A. Chung, PhD ◽  
Charles E. Donaghey, PhD

On September 13, 2008, Hurricane Ike caused massive destruction along the Gulf Coast of the United States. In response to subsistence shortages caused by infrastructure damage, government officials opened 26 Points of Distributions (PODs) to distribute food, water, and ice. To analyze the accessibility of these PODs, a Microsoft Windows software program POD Locator was developed by the researchers. This program calculated the average distance of each area residents’ home location to the closest of the 26 PODs to be 6.41 miles. In comparison, POD Locator identified an alternative set of 26 PODs with an average distance of 3.71 miles for an average reduction in travel of 46 percent. POD Locator also identified the fact that similar performance to the actual 26 PODs was achievable with only 10 PODs.


2020 ◽  
pp. 21-41
Author(s):  
Leanne McCallum

Hurricane Katrina was a devastating natural disaster that changed the landscape of the United States’ Gulf Coast. This was followed by a human-made disaster of failed policies, poor governmental oversight, and rampant labour abuse. This article compares how the anti-trafficking and labour rights movements responded to the widespread labour abuse following Katrina. It examines how the worker rights movement responded to systemic issues impacting labourers, and explores the anti-trafficking movement’s criminal justice response to severe forms of exploitation. It shows how the anti-trafficking movement failed to adequately address severe forms of labour abuse, as opposed to the more successful organising efforts of the worker rights movement. The article concludes by considering how the two movements may respond to conditions of labour exploitation emerging as a result of a new disaster impacting workers in Louisiana: the COVID-19 pandemic.


2009 ◽  
Vol 95 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-12
Author(s):  
Kusuma Madamala ◽  
Claudia R. Campbell ◽  
Edbert B. Hsu ◽  
Yu-Hsiang Hsieh ◽  
James James

ABSTRACT Introduction: On Aug. 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the Gulf Coast of the United States, resulting in the evacuation of more than 1.5 million people, including nearly 6000 physicians. This article examines the relocation patterns of physicians following the storm, determines the impact that the disaster had on their lives and practices, and identifies lessons learned. Methods: An Internet-based survey was conducted among licensed physicians reporting addresses within Federal Emergency Management Agency-designated disaster zones in Louisiana and Mississippi. Descriptive data analysis was used to describe respondent characteristics. Multivariate logistic regression was performed to identify the factors associated with physician nonreturn to original practice. For those remaining relocated out of state, bivariate analysis with x2 or Fisher exact test was used to determine factors associated with plans to return to original practice. Results: A total of 312 eligible responses were collected. Among disaster zone respondents, 85.6 percent lived in Louisiana and 14.4 percent resided in Mississippi before the hurricane struck. By spring 2006, 75.6 percent (n = 236) of the respondents had returned to their original homes, whereas 24.4 percent (n = 76) remained displaced. Factors associated with nonreturn to original employment included family or general medicine practice (OR 0.42, 95 percent CI 0.17–1.04; P = .059) and severe or complete damage to the workplace (OR 0.24, 95 percent CI 0.13–0.42; P < .001). Conclusions: A sizeable proportion of physicians remain displaced after Hurricane Katrina, along with a lasting decrease in the number of physicians serving in the areas affected by the disaster. Programs designed to address identified physician needs in the aftermath of the storm may give confidence to displaced physicians to return.


2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikiyasu Nakayama ◽  
Nicholas Nicholas Bryner ◽  
Satoru Mimura

This special issue features policy priorities, public perceptions, and policy options for addressing post-disaster return migration in the United States, Japan, and a couple of Asian countries. It includes a series of case studies in these countries, which are based on a sustained dialogue among scholars and policymakers about whether and how to incentivize the return of displaced persons, considering social, economic, and environmental concerns. The research team, composed of researchers from Indonesia, Japan, Sri Lanka, and the United States, undertook a collaborative and interdisciplinary research process to improve understanding about how to respond to the needs of those displaced by natural disasters and to develop policy approaches for addressing post-disaster return. The research focused on the following three key issues: objectives of return migration (whether to return, in what configuration, etc.), priorities and perceptions that influence evacuees’ decision-making regarding return, and policies and practices that are used to pursue return objectives. This special issue includes ten articles on the following disaster cases: the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012, the Great Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004, and the Great Sumatra Island Earthquake in 2009. Important lessons for the future were secured out of these case studies, covering the entire phase of return, namely planning, implementation, and monitoring.


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